Sci Fi and Me
(Inspired by the article The War on Science Fiction, which is pretty much the biggest peice of flaming crap ever to be left on someone's front porch. Don't read unless you're in the mood to blow a few blood vessels.)
So, let's talk about my favorite field of fiction: sci-fi (never, ever spelled Sy-Fy). It tends to be lumped in with fantasy, since both genres are actually subgenres of speculative fiction. There are some valid comparisons to be made between to two, but they remain separate and are not in the least interchangeable.
Starting with the larger genre: speculative fiction is just what it sounds like: fiction that asks (and then answers) the question "What if?". It includes not only sci-fi and fantasy, but alternate history as well. The subgenres can criss-cross all over each other at times (steampunk is an example of alternate history meets sci-fi), but, for the purposes of this entry, let's just focus on sci-fi.
When Sci-fi asks "What if?", it asks it largely in the context of advancements in technology. The spaceships, the aliens, the blasters, the super-smart computers, the supervirus that kills the world, the symbiote that lives in your belly, they're all extrapolations from modern-day technologies. And because of that, sci-fi has an added edge of realism over other forms of speculative fiction; because there is a grain of truth, there is a grain of prescience that fantasy and alternate history lack.
So... "What if humans could travel to the furthest reaches of the galaxy?" "What if we came across sentient life on other planets?" "What if a virus struck the planet and turned 98% of the world's population into zombies?" Well... that depends on the author. Oftentimes, we learn what the author thinks of humanity; what human nature is, what makes a human a human when there's alternatives around. Very often it involves fighting (using the blasters), or traveling (using the spaceships), or innovating (using the super-smart computers). People have adventures, they explore new horizons, they build new worlds.
People do these things- people who are very often at once relatable and extraordinary. People who are inspiring.
Which is where my big beef with sci-fi comes in: like most areas of fiction, there's a long tradition of straight white male domination: the theory being that straight white and male is some sort a default which people of all sexualities, genders, and races can idolizes, whereas black characters can only be indentified with if the audience is largely black, queer characters can sell with a queer audience, and women can only inspire women.
Well, fuck that shit.
I am not your slave girl, your dutiful wife, your telephone operator, your doting mother, your eye candy, your pretty nurse, your damsel in distress,the soothing voice on your computer, your plot device. I'm Kathryn Janeway, Jadzia Dax, Zoe Washburne, Teyla Emmagen, Samantha Carter, Martha Jones, Susan Ivanova. If you can't find that as inspiring as James Kirk, Miles O'Brien, Malcolm Reynolds, John Sheppard, Jack O'Neill, Harry Sullivan, and John Sheridan, then that is not my problem. It's not the genre's problem. It's yours.
So, let's talk about my favorite field of fiction: sci-fi (never, ever spelled Sy-Fy). It tends to be lumped in with fantasy, since both genres are actually subgenres of speculative fiction. There are some valid comparisons to be made between to two, but they remain separate and are not in the least interchangeable.
Starting with the larger genre: speculative fiction is just what it sounds like: fiction that asks (and then answers) the question "What if?". It includes not only sci-fi and fantasy, but alternate history as well. The subgenres can criss-cross all over each other at times (steampunk is an example of alternate history meets sci-fi), but, for the purposes of this entry, let's just focus on sci-fi.
When Sci-fi asks "What if?", it asks it largely in the context of advancements in technology. The spaceships, the aliens, the blasters, the super-smart computers, the supervirus that kills the world, the symbiote that lives in your belly, they're all extrapolations from modern-day technologies. And because of that, sci-fi has an added edge of realism over other forms of speculative fiction; because there is a grain of truth, there is a grain of prescience that fantasy and alternate history lack.
So... "What if humans could travel to the furthest reaches of the galaxy?" "What if we came across sentient life on other planets?" "What if a virus struck the planet and turned 98% of the world's population into zombies?" Well... that depends on the author. Oftentimes, we learn what the author thinks of humanity; what human nature is, what makes a human a human when there's alternatives around. Very often it involves fighting (using the blasters), or traveling (using the spaceships), or innovating (using the super-smart computers). People have adventures, they explore new horizons, they build new worlds.
People do these things- people who are very often at once relatable and extraordinary. People who are inspiring.
Which is where my big beef with sci-fi comes in: like most areas of fiction, there's a long tradition of straight white male domination: the theory being that straight white and male is some sort a default which people of all sexualities, genders, and races can idolizes, whereas black characters can only be indentified with if the audience is largely black, queer characters can sell with a queer audience, and women can only inspire women.
Well, fuck that shit.
I am not your slave girl, your dutiful wife, your telephone operator, your doting mother, your eye candy, your pretty nurse, your damsel in distress,the soothing voice on your computer, your plot device. I'm Kathryn Janeway, Jadzia Dax, Zoe Washburne, Teyla Emmagen, Samantha Carter, Martha Jones, Susan Ivanova. If you can't find that as inspiring as James Kirk, Miles O'Brien, Malcolm Reynolds, John Sheppard, Jack O'Neill, Harry Sullivan, and John Sheridan, then that is not my problem. It's not the genre's problem. It's yours.